In 2006, Mat Brooke left indie mainstay Band of Horses to explore his own sound. He recruited friends Jeff Montano, Curtis Hall, and Thomas Wright –veterans of bands such as The New Mexicans and The Jeunes – to form Grand Archives. Their indie street cred was solidified almost immediately: they were signed to Sub Pop after their first show, and opened for Modest Mouse for their second.

Although Brooke is the primary creative force, each member makes significant contributions, especially in a live setting. During their lively set at Great Scott, the crowd of instruments on stage left little room for the foursome, and it seemed like at least one of them switched instruments after each song. At times, three of them were strumming on ukuleles, other times half the band would be blowing furiously into harmonicas.  The one constant was all band members joining in for impressive four-part vocal harmonies. The end result was surprisingly light and uplifting folk-flecked indie-pop . Now on tour in support of their second album, Keep in Mind Frankenstein, we caught up Curtis before their recent gig at Great Scott.

–Tim Burdick

Alright, let’s start off by talking about how you guys came together as a band.

Sure. We started playing in the summer of 2006. All of us just came together from other bands. Jeff, the bass player, and I were playing with some other folks. Mat was doing the Band of Horses thing. We left our respective projects and started playing. Thomas came on board shortly after that, and we’ve been playing ever since.

Compared to the bands you’ve been with in the past, what is the creative process for Grand Archives like?

I think it works pretty well. We all come from pretty disparate styles of music, but it works. We have a good dynamic. Of course, Mat writes all the songs. He’ll bring a basic idea or skeleton of a song, and we’ll all just put our own thing on it  and build it into whatever monster the song will become. Sometimes he’ll come in with full lyrics, but more often than not it starts musically, and the lyrics are added after.

Can you talk about some of your influences or favorite bands?

Oh jeez. It’s sort of a cop out to say you like everything, but I really do like everything. All of us do. On any day of the tour, in the van, you can go across genres from modern rock to classic rock to reggae to hip hop to electronic to country to world music, indie music. You name it, we listen to it. It may not show in our records, but we are all pretty big music fans in general. We like quite a bit of different things. We really do like it all. For example, we’ve been playing with The Most Serene Republic, a Canadian band on Arts & Crafts. They’re pretty different from us, but they’re fucking great. Somehow our bands work on a bill together, because we all just like music and we like playing together.

Is there anything you’ve gotten into recently? If I was to look at your iPod, what would I find in the recently added playlist?

Hmm. We’ve been listening to the new Pearl Jam record a lot. It’s a killer record, you should check it out.

So, what’s been going on with the Grand Archives recently?

Our album, Keep in Mind Frankenstein, came out about a month ago. We’ve been touring in support of that. We’re in the middle of it now. We’re on the other side of the first part of the tour. We started on the West coast, went across Canada, and then came down through Wisconsin, Ohio, and Philly. We just did a show in New York, and now we’re here in Boston. After this we’re going to Northampton then back up to Canada, and then back west through Chicago. We’re going to be home for a couple of weeks, and we’re doing a full West coast. We’ll go down through LA, into Arizona, back up through Denver, and home again. We’re home for about a month and then we go to Europe.

So, you’ve been touring pretty extensively, has anything crazy happened to you on tour?

It’s been pretty smooth for us. Unfortunately, The Most Serene Republic has had a string of bad luck. They got a bunch of their gear stolen in Vancouver. That’s pretty much been the biggest thing that has happened on the tour.  They’ve been using our gear since then.

Are there any songs – either from the first record or the new record – that you’re really excited to play tonight?

We’ve been playing mostly stuff of our new record, but we throw in some songs from our first record too. We’ve really been having a lot of fun with the ones on the new record. When we toured after the first album, we adhered pretty closely to how the songs sounded on the record. With the newer songs, we’ve been leaving it open to play longer or shorter. There might be some extended pieces that happen during a song. It’s been a little bit more improvised and not as rigid.

You’ve laid out your future tour plans, but what else is in the future of Grand Archives? Are you planning on recording again soon, or taking a break, or…?

We haven’t talked about recording again as of yet. I’m sure it’s bound to happen at some point. I think that we don’t have any concrete plans after we get back from Europe. We’ll probably just come home and take it easy for awhile.

Do you guys have any particular connection with Boston?

I know we like it here. I know that folks we play for here seem to like it and we’ve always had good shows here.

Do you have any favorite places to play here?

We’re at Great Scott tonight, and we played Great Scott last time. The show last time was excellent.

Are there any artists from Boston that you follow?

I’m drawing a blank on Boston bands besides the classics. The Cars. Aerosmith.